Practical Ways to Monitor Centrifugal Pump Performance

Pumps are required throughout the process industry to move fluids from point A to point B. This may involve moving fluid from a lower pressure to a higher pressure, lifting the fluid from a lower elevation to a high level, or a combination of both of these requirements. Centrifugal pumps are devices that transform mechanical energy into useful fluid energy. Head is a convenient form of stating pressure in centrifugal pump applications. Centrifugal pumps' performance can and usually does degrade with time, usually due to erosion or corrosion at the tight-fitting internal seals, called wear rings. The chapter provides four assessment methods that are often used when field testing centrifugal pumps. These include: measure the pump's differential pressure at shut-in conditions, compare pump head and flow with test curve, compare the driver horsepower at a given flow with the predicted test curve horsepower, and determine the pump's hydraulic efficiency.